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Project

DESIGN AND SYNTHESIS OF MULTILAYER MIXED-ACTION NANOPARTICLES

The use of nanotechnology in cancer therapy has attracted growing attention over the past decade. Many drug nanocarriers offering considerable advantages over conventional chemotherapy have been developed. Some nanomedicines are already in use in the clinics (eg.Abraxane and Doxil). Although chemotherapy is fatal for almost all cells in a tumour, a small percentage of cells can appear resistant. It has been shown that overexpression of drug efflux pumps is one of the mechanisms behind multi-drug resistance (MDR). Down-regulation of the expression of efflux pumps has been shown to increase the susceptibility of MDR cells to treatment. A promising approach to attack drug-resistant cells is by delivery of drugs and simultaneously reducing the expression of efflux pumps. The latter can be achieved by e.g. delivering mRNA for Cas9 translation alongside a separate guide RNA to achieve site-specific gene editing. This requires nanoparticles with multiple timescales of release that are tightly regulated because the drug should not be released before the pumps are downregulated. This could be achieved by multilayered nanoparticles in which release from core and shell can be controlled by intermediate polymer layers. The aim of this project is to design such multilayered nanoparticles with the controlled release on multiple timescales guided by fluorescence microscopy.

Date:10 Jan 2020 →  10 Jan 2024
Keywords:Colloidal particle synthesis, Super-resolution imaging, Cancer cells targeting
Disciplines:Spectroscopic methods, Nanochemistry, Synthesis of materials
Project type:PhD project